Sunday, May 14, 2006

Gone Fishing

In working toward the 2 million gil mark that would allow me to purchase the Amemit Mantle +1, everything has been progressing pretty smoothly (about 700k to go). I've been supplying the AH with Sleeping Potion, Poison Potion (camping the Bibiki Bay shop for the cobalt), Firesand, and Carbon Fiber for a pretty steady income. Rather than opt for Concoction, I purchased the Trituration key item with my guild points, and I'm glad I did. Since I farm all of my Water and Lightning crystals, I appreciate the savings in crystals. And given my short time-windows I definitely enjoy the time savings (most recipes yield 3, so it only takes 4 synths to make a quick stack).

But I've decided I need to branch out further. One of the deciding factors has been the fluctuating Alchemy market, which I think is mostly due to the new expansion and the time spent on new jobs rather than CoP activities. One week Poison Potion will be scarce at about 10-20 stacks with constant demand for about 40k per stack (massive profits here). The next week, demand dries up and random Alchemy newbies spam the AH with stacks bringing supply into the upper 50's and the price plummets to something around 23-24k (you're better off selling the Mercury at this point). After seeing this happen a couple of times, I've decided to diversify.

And I'm really enjoying fishing so far. After selling a few stacks of Moat Carps for the crack-like high (9k of free money per stack ... wheeee), I decided to start tucking them away for the Lu-Shang quest. I've studied fishing quite a bit and can tell I'm about to step into something that may very well spiral into obsessive depravity, and I'm perfectly OK with it. I still want to eventually alternate fishing and crafting (especially when I can fish up alchemy ingredients), but for the next few days, I think I'll be skilling up and storing Moat Carps. I like the Titanictus.com guide that provides options for people who want to collect the carps as they go from 0-50, rather than wait until they hit 50. I think I'll be following that method for awhile.